


Perfect Match

by genmitsu



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu
Summary: Oswald has a soulmate. Jim doesn't.Basically, it's a soulmate AU subversion.





	Perfect Match

The soulmates are real. The person who completes you, who will love you, who is destined for you. Your perfect match. Your personal piece of heaven. And you're theirs.  
Bliss, right?  
Except Barbara never was his. They had a good run together, her and him, enjoyable, fun, sweet. But then the mark appeared on her wrist and it was not his name. And he lost her.  
Because who would refuse their chance at heaven? He could not even blame her. He was happy for her, deep down. Very deep down, under the blackest grief he ever experienced. Not even losing his parents hurt that way. It's different this time, so much more vile. But he couldn't, wouldn't act on it.  
He drinks.  
He drowns himself in work, getting angrier, getting more frustrated, more violent. Maybe it's his way of coping. Maybe he was always that way and only Barbara could soften him enough for him to pass as a person with a regular short fuse and not a badly subdued hurricane.  
The only person without fear in his eyes when he gets violent is Oswald Cobblepot. Even when he pushes Oswald around, throws him against walls, spits angry words in his face. The fear is never there. And he didn't even know himself how much seeing that fear in everyone aggravated him until he met a person who just... didn't fear him at his worst. He even found himself softening around Oswald, cracking smiles that weren't malicious or promising pain.  
No, Oswald's name was not the one on his wrist. His wrist stayed unmarked.  
It just didn't happen. Everyone has a mark appear, eventually.  
But even when Oswald became more and more a part of his life, when they saw each other not only for exchanging intel but for casual drinks, when he felt that maybe, just maybe he was getting rid of the vile black monster in his heart, his wrist remained unmarked.  
Oswald's wrists are always hidden under his cuffs and he tells himself he wouldn't pry. He keeps thinking about it though. He steals glances at Oswald's cuffs every time they meet. He persuades himself he doesn't need to know. He doesn't care. He tells himself he doesn't care but then finds himself crowding Oswald against the bar counter in a now empty club, carelessly ripping out his cufflinks and baring his wrists.  
There's a name on Oswald's pale wrist.  
It isn't his.  
But then Oswald kisses him, hotly, strongly, with a passion so dark it could match his vile black monster inside and he comes undone instantly, lips bruising, teeth leaving marks all over Oswald's lips and neck. He was always a hurricane.  
Oswald just always stayed in his eye.

Later, he asks him why. He knows the name on Oswald's wrist. He knows Oswald met his soulmate. So why does he refuse his heaven, why does he stay with him? What possible reason Oswald could have for such madness?  
Oswald looks at him like it's him who's mad.

"Because, like it or not, I love _you_ , Jim. I don't want anyone else."

His mark does appear eventually. A much shorter name than Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.  
He doesn't care.  
He already has his perfect match.  
The monster in his heart growls contentedly when they come together. So maybe it's not heaven. They could live with that.


End file.
